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Evolutionary game theory and typology: A case study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2026

Gerhard Jäger
Gerhard Jäger*
Affiliation:
University of Bielefeld
*
University of Bielefeld, Department of Linguistics and Literature, PF 10 01 31, D-33501, Bielefeld Germany, [Gerhard.Jaeger@uni-bielefeld.de]
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Abstract

This article deals with the typology of the case marking of semantic core roles. The competing economy considerations of hearer (disambiguation) and speaker (minimal effort) are formalized in terms of EVOLUTIONARY GAME THEORY. It is shown that the case-marking patterns that are attested in the languages of the world are those that are evolutionarily stable for different relative weightings of speaker economy and hearer economy, given the statistical patterns of language use that were extracted from corpora of naturally occurring conversations.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 83 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 74 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © 2007 by the Linguistic Society of America

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